BIOS is an essential set of routines in a personal computer stored on a chip that provides an interface between the operating system and the system hardware. The BIOS supports all peripheral technologies and internal services such as the realtime clock (time and date).
On startup, the BIOS tests the system and prepares the computer for operation by querying its own small memory bank for drive and other configuration settings. It searches for other BIOS's on the plug-in boards and sets up pointers (interrupt vectors) in memory to access those routines. The BIOS routines initialize all of the hardware technology within the computer so it is properly operating. It then loads the operating system and passes control to it.
Today, personal computers are used in many different countries throughout the world encompassing many different languages. Consequently, each different language requires a change to the BIOS and setup to support that specific language. Conventionally, computer systems are hard wired for a particular language when each system is built. In other words, the BIOS is selected based on a particular language at build time. This creates a problem if the user subsequently needs to use the system in a country with a language different than that in which the computer system was hard wired or because more than one language is spoken in the country, because the system must then be re-built with the correct BIOS implementation. This can be a tedious and cumbersome process if a computer is utilized in several different languages.
Therefore, what is needed is a method and system that automatically configures the BIOS based on the language requirement. The method and system should be simple, cost effective and capable of being easily adapted into existing technology. The present invention addresses such a need.